Or "What January Saw" depending on your lingual abilities. Looking out at my garden, I'm asking myself, will we get a January thaw? I remember the one from last year because I planted peas and spinach--just in case (fail). I remember a thaw 4 years ago because I had a newborn and my 3 year old left the chicken run gate open. So what was I doing in ill-fitting clothes, flips flops, and with clobbered stomach muscles?--slipping and sliding through the muck, catching hens who were bent on freedom. And my mom watched it all from my kitchen, laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. My neighbor planted peas the first week of February last year and was harvesting by mid-May (in a place where I've seen snow in the last week of May), so I know that a winter thaw is potentially a gardener's godsend. From what I understand, our garden patriarch Ralph has successfully planted peas in a January thaw.
But thus far my garden and the RP Community Garden 'saw no thaw.' However, January saw us (by way of update) officially partner with Wasatch Community Gardens (
http://wasatchgardens.org/community/gardens/rose-park ) who now provide administrative services, gardening education, leadership development, and
community gardening-related resources AND we will continue to "nourish and nurture our future through a shared teaching garden that connects people to food, heritage and to the community." Our mission is right in line with Wasatch's mission to "Empower people of all ages and incomes to grow and eat healthy, organic, local food." So we will still grow dozens of varieties of fruits and vegetables, work together and provide a place for community gathering.
Work begins in mid-February and our first community event will be in mid-Spring. So flout the freeze and start planning for spring's garden, because the thaw will come.
Chard. No offense to die-hard garden connoisseurs, but even the name sounds gross. Rainbow does help that image a little, but not much. The first chard I ever grew was around age 10. I planted it, trusting my dad's assertion that it tasted like spinach (I actually ate steamed spinach with lemon:) Wow was I disappointed. The flavor was more like mud. Years later, my husband convinced me to give it another try and I was not impressed. But last year at the Garden, a lady told me to eat it when it's young and tender. So this spring I capitalized on last year's plants that had wintered over. The taste was unbelievable-light and buttery, with only the slightest earthy flavor. Then a recipe came in the mail from my grocery store for a chard frittata. I tried it out on my in-laws (big hit) and my son's 4th grade class (it was received with modest success). Now that we're harvesting this year's chard at the Garden, I'll share the recipe (JoyBauer.com credited by Smith's).
